The O'Neills of Tyrone were the Gaelic high kings of Ulster - inheritors of Niall of the Nine Hostages and the dynasty that traced itself back to Eoghan and his brother Conall. Their seat of power moved repeatedly: from the Grianán Aileach hillfort in Donegal until 1101, when the O'Briens of Thomond destroyed it; then to Urney, three miles outside Strabane; then in 1243 to Cookstown. Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone - Aodh Mór Ó Néill, born around 1550 - led the Gaelic forces in the Nine Years' War against the English Crown, and his defeat at Kinsale in 1601 effectively ended Gaelic Ireland as an independent political force. The 1607 Flight of the Earls saw him sail for the Continent with the Earl of Tyrconnell. Sir Cahir O'Doherty's rebellion in 1608 burned Derry and laid waste much of the surrounding country, though O'Doherty's men, the chronicles note, carefully avoided the estates of the absent Earl of Tyrone around Dungannon - they did not want to give him reason to come back.

Geographically, Tyrone is a study in contrast. The east, around Lough Neagh - the largest lake in the British Isles by area - is flat peatland. The west rises toward the Sperrin Mountains, with Sawel Mountain at 678 metres being the high point. Between them runs the Strule and its tributaries, with rolling drumlin country that has been farmed for thousands of years. The county is 55 miles long from the mouth of the River Blackwater on Lough Neagh to the western point near Carrickaduff hill, and 37.5 miles wide from south-east of Fivemiletown to the north-east near Meenard Mountain. Omagh is the county town. The 2021 census recorded around 188,000 people, with a majority - around 45% - identifying their nationality as Irish only, 27% as British, and 28% as Northern Irish. It is one of four counties in Northern Ireland with a majority Catholic background. Some 18% of residents have some knowledge of Irish, with about 6% claiming full fluency.

Gaelic football in Tyrone is more than sport; it is identity. The county has won four All-Ireland titles - in 2003, 2005, 2008, and 2021 - and sixteen Ulster Senior Football Championships dating back to 1956. The 2003 victory under captain Peter Canavan was historic: Tyrone's first All-Ireland senior title. Brian Dooher, the team's quietly relentless wing-forward and later captain, won the 2003, 2005, and 2008 finals as a player. The 2021 win after a year of postponed games and pandemic disruption brought new heroes. Tyrone's footballing tradition runs deep through the parishes and the small village clubs - Carrickmore, Errigal Ciarán, Trillick, Coalisland, Dungannon. Rugby, soccer, and cricket all have followings. Bready Cricket Club Ground hosted Ireland's fourth international cricket venue, with the first international match against Scotland in June 2015.

The county's diaspora reads like a parallel history of the Anglophone world. John Dunlap, born in Strabane in 1747, printed the United States Declaration of Independence. Thomas Mellon, born near Camp Hill, founded Mellon Bank - now Bank of New York Mellon. William McMaster founded the Canadian Bank of Commerce and gave McMaster University its name. John Hughes from Annaloghan became the first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York. James E. Boyd was the seventh Governor of Nebraska. John K. Tener became Governor of Pennsylvania and created the Congressional Baseball Game. Mary Mallon - Typhoid Mary - was born in Cookstown in 1869 and became the first identified asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever in the United States. Tom Clarke, born in Hurdlestown but raised in Dungannon, was the first signatory of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic and one of the executed leaders of the Easter Rising. Brian Friel, the playwright; Flann O'Brien, the satirist; W.F. Marshall, the 'Bard of Tyrone'; Benedict Kiely; Janet Devlin; Dennis Taylor the world snooker champion. The county has been remarkably good at producing people who go somewhere else and reshape what they find there.